I was in the forest and I saw what I believed was a great horned owl (I was really surprised because it is not easy to see this bird during the day). When the owl noticed me, it flew to a further away tree and in doing so, a feather fell down next to me so I took this beautiful feather to look at it under the microscope! . There are different types of feathers. This one looks like a contour feather but I am not sure (let me know in the comments if you know what type of feather it is). . The microscopic structure of feathers combined with their chemical composition (keratin) makes feathers be amazing thermal insulators. Also, because feathers are made of keratin, feathers are excellent at repelling water. And of course, because the structure of the feather is so light, feathers are a great way to “make wings” so that the birds can fly (great surface to mass ratio). . The microscopic structure of this feather is so beautiful! . For this video I used an Olympus CX31 microscope at 40x, 100x, and 200x magnification and a Leica ZOOM 200 stereoscope. #birds #birdsofconnecticut #pajaros #greathornedowl #owl #feather #owlfeather #pluma #microscopy #microscope #microscopio #naturalpatterns #artinnature #drbioforever